Sellers profited in 2016, after 7 years of losses

This Northbrook home sold in October for $830,000, up 118 percent from the $380,000 its sellers paid for it in 1996.

Chicago-area home sellers averaged a profit last year for the first time since 2008 but were far behind the average national gain, according to a new report.

Sellers in the Chicago area got an average of 3 percent more in 2016 than they paid for their homes (whenever they bought them), according to Attom, a real estate information service.

In the previous seven years local sellers averaged a loss; the average in 2015 was 6 percent. The year with the biggest average loss locally was 2012, when it was 27 percent.

The average a seller got over the purchase price was $5,000 in 2016, compared to $11,500 less than they paid the year before. In 2012, Chicago-area sellers averaged $56,000 less than what they bought their homes for, according to the Attom report.

Attom tracks same-home sales for the report, meaning its data compares what homeowners paid and what they sold the same home for last year. The purchase prices Attom uses do not include any spending on upgrades.

Nationwide, sellers last year got an average of 21 percent more than they paid, or $38,206. The year before, the national average was 13 percent more, or $24,288.

The average turned positive nationally in 2014, two years before it did in Chicago.

Among big cities, the highest average gains in 2016 were in San Jose (69 percent, or $345,000), San Francisco (69 percent, or $295,000), Los Angeles (49 percent, or $180,000), and Seattle (48 percent, or $121,000).